It seems Sandy Springs proved that you can save money, and get better services, by not using the government.

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* Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement​

July 9, 2006​

"When U.S. troops entered Baghdad in the spring of 2003, there was no electricity, widespread looting and little evidence of postwar planning. With the American military stretched to the limit, the Pentagon set up the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to govern the country under Ambassador Paul Bremer, who began hiring private companies to secure and rebuild the country.

There were no banks or wire transfers to pay them, no bean counters to keep track of the money. Just vaults and footlockers stuffed with billions of dollars in cash.

"Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," recalls Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authority&#8217;s Ministry of Transportation.

The money was a mixture of Iraqi oil revenues, war booty and U.S. government funds earmarked for the coalition authority. Whenever cash was needed, someone went down to the vault with a wheelbarrow or gunny sacks.

"Those are $100,000 bricks of $100 bills and that&#8217;s $2 million there," Willis explains, looking at a photo of brick-shaped stacks of money wrapped in plastic. "This, in fact, is a payment that we made on the 1st of August to a company called Custer Battles."

Willis says the bricks of money were also sometimes referred to as footballs, "&#8230; because we passed them around in little pickup games in our office," he says laughing.

Asked if he has any evidence that the accounting system was a little loose, Willis says, "I would describe it as nonexistent."

"On March 9th, 2006, a federal jury in Virginia found Scott Custer, Michael Battles and Joseph Morris "guilty of defrauding the United States by filing grossly inflated invoices for work in the chaotic year after the Iraqi invasion."

The trial dealt with only one of several CusterBattles' contracts and the jury found that the entire $3 million in the contract had been "gained by fraud". The defendants will have to "repay the government triple damages and also pay fines for 37 fraudulent acts.....

The biggest benefit isnt from the cost savings, its from the fact that if the subcontractor screws up, or does not provide the service as specified, they can be dismissed and another subcontractor can be brought in to replace them.

Try that with city workers or a city agency. Once in, they tend to stay in, and any attempt to get them out requires navigating grievance procedures so onerous that it is easier to dump them somewhere where they can't break anything, and either hire someone new or cover thier work with OT from other workers.

The city also pays a set amount for any benefits to the sub, and they handle retirment/health care for thier workers.

The biggest benefit isnt from the cost savings, its from the fact that if the subcontractor screws up, or does not provide the service as specified, they can be dismissed and another subcontractor can be brought in to replace them.

Try that with city workers or a city agency. Once in, they tend to stay in, and any attempt to get them out requires navigating grievance procedures so onerous that it is easier to dump them somewhere where they can't break anything, and either hire someone new or cover thier work with OT from other workers.

The city also pays a set amount for any benefits to the sub, and they handle retirment/health care for thier workers.

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Tell this to the servicemen and their families who were killed by Haliburton contractors. I am sure that will make them feel ALL better...

Sometimes contractors are appropriate, sometimes not. There is nothing wrong with experimenting. Governments, just like businesses, should always be striving for the best effectiveness at the least possible cost to the taxpayers.

The biggest benefit isnt from the cost savings, its from the fact that if the subcontractor screws up, or does not provide the service as specified, they can be dismissed and another subcontractor can be brought in to replace them.

Try that with city workers or a city agency. Once in, they tend to stay in, and any attempt to get them out requires navigating grievance procedures so onerous that it is easier to dump them somewhere where they can't break anything, and either hire someone new or cover thier work with OT from other workers.

The city also pays a set amount for any benefits to the sub, and they handle retirment/health care for thier workers.

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Tell this to the servicemen and their families who were killed by Haliburton contractors. I am sure that will make them feel ALL better...

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Considering the post and my comment refers to local municipalities and services like garbage pickup and water treatment I'm not sure where the haliburton thing comes in.

And please reference your statement that haliburton killed servicemen and families of servicemen. I would like to see the court case and convictions on that.

The biggest benefit isnt from the cost savings, its from the fact that if the subcontractor screws up, or does not provide the service as specified, they can be dismissed and another subcontractor can be brought in to replace them.

Try that with city workers or a city agency. Once in, they tend to stay in, and any attempt to get them out requires navigating grievance procedures so onerous that it is easier to dump them somewhere where they can't break anything, and either hire someone new or cover thier work with OT from other workers.

The city also pays a set amount for any benefits to the sub, and they handle retirment/health care for thier workers.

Click to expand...

Tell this to the servicemen and their families who were killed by Haliburton contractors. I am sure that will make them feel ALL better...

Click to expand...

Considering the post and my comment refers to local municipalities and services like garbage pickup and water treatment I'm not sure where the haliburton thing comes in.

And please reference your statement that haliburton killed servicemen and families of servicemen. I would like to see the court case and convictions on that.

If you actually read the article it seems that the problems were reported, but were never authorized to be repaired because of a burecratic screw up. I work in construction, and what basically happened was KBR's scope did not include work to repair deficiencies. A simple scope fix would have rectified it, but this did not happen until the accidents occured. The blame here is on all parties, not just the contractor, so calling them out for "killing" someone due to an accident is dishonest.

And no, government is not goverment. I dont mind seeing things like garbage pickup and say DMV customer service privatized. Police and fire? Not so much.

If you actually read the article it seems that the problems were reported, but were never authorized to be repaired because of a burecratic screw up. I work in construction, and what basically happened was KBR's scope did not include work to repair deficiencies. A simple scope fix would have rectified it, but this did not happen until the accidents occured. The blame here is on all parties, not just the contractor, so calling them out for "killing" someone due to an accident is dishonest.

And no, government is not goverment. I dont mind seeing things like garbage pickup and say DMV customer service privatized. Police and fire? Not so much.

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I too, work in service as well as construction, I guess my company simply has higher morals that yours or Haliburton's? To allow someone to be killed because your gross margin might suffer due to scope creep is reprehensible.

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